Question

I have this code:

from BeautifulSoup import BeautifulSoup

TABLE_CONTENT = [['958','<a id="958F" href="javascript:c_row(\'958\')" title="go to map"><img src="/images/c_map.png" border="0"></a>','USA','Atmospheric','<a href="javascript:c_ol(\'958\')" title="click date time to show origin_list (evid=958)">1945/07/16 11:29:45</a>','33.6753','-106.4747','','-.03','21','','','TRINITY','&nbsp;','&nbsp;','<a href="javascript:c_md(\'958\')" title="click here to show source data">SourceData</a>','&nbsp;'],['959','<a id="959F" href="javascript:c_row(\'959\')" title="go to map"><img src="/images/c_map.png" border="0"></a>','USA','Atmospheric','<a href="javascript:c_ol(\'959\')" title="click date time to show origin_list (evid=959)">1945/08/05 23:16:02</a>','34.395','132.4538','','-.58','15','','','LITTLEBOY','&nbsp;','&nbsp;','<a href="javascript:c_md(\'959\')" title="click here to show source data">SourceData</a>','&nbsp;']]

EVENT_LIST = []
for EVENT in TABLE_CONTENT:
    events = {}
    for index, item in enumerate(EVENT):
        if index == 0:
            events['id'] = item
        if index == 4:
            soup = BeautifulSoup(item)
            for a in soup.findAll('a'):
                events['date'] = ''.join(a.findAll(text=True))
        if index == 2:
            events['country'] = item
        if index == 3:
            events['type'] = item
        if index == 5:
            events['lat'] = item
        if index == 6:
            events['lon'] = item
        if index == 8:
            events['depth'] = item
        if index == 9:
            events['yield'] = item
        if index == 12:
            events['name'] = item
    sorted(events, key=lambda key: events['id'])
    EVENT_LIST.append(events)
    print '=== new record ==='
EVENT_LIST.sort(key=lambda x: x['id'])
print EVENT_LIST

the first issue, i have is that within the EVENT_LIST the dictionary objects are not in the same order as they have been added to the list, for example, the ‘lat’ and ‘lon’ when i print the results are not in order:

[{'name': 'TRINITY', 'country': 'USA', 'lon': '-106.4747', 'yield': '21', 'lat': '33.6753', 'depth': '-.03', 'date': u'1945/07/16 11:29:45', 'type': 'Atmospheric', 'id': '958'}, {'name': 'LITTLEBOY', 'country': 'USA', 'lon': '132.4538', 'yield': '15', 'lat': '34.395', 'depth': '-.58', 'date': u'1945/08/05 23:16:02', 'type': 'Atmospheric', 'id': '959'}]

also is there a better way to write this code?

Answer 1

You can preserve the order of insertions into a dictionary by using an OrderedDict container. From the manual:

Return an instance of a dict subclass, supporting the usual dict
methods. An OrderedDict is a dict that remembers the order that keys
were first inserted. If a new entry overwrites an existing entry, the
original insertion position is left unchanged. Deleting an entry and
reinserting it will move it to the end.

This feature has only been around since version 2.7.

@Better way: You might change subsequent if index == ... to elif index == ... since, if the index is 2, it never can be 5. Or you could store index/key combinations and use those to store your items. Example (not tried):

combos={
        0: 'id',
        2: 'country',
        3: 'type',
        5: 'lat',
        6: 'lon',
        8: 'depth',
        9: 'yield',
        12: 'name' }

...

for index, item ...:
    if index == 4:
        soup = BeautifulSoup(item)
        for a in soup.findAll('a'):
        events['date'] = ''.join(a.findAll(text=True))
    elif index in combos:
        events[combox[index]]=item

I think you get the idea.